Far more than competitive balance and officials' readiness and preferred style of play, college football should be concerned with player safety.

Toward that end, once the current tug-of-war for the soul of the sport ends Thursday when the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel votes on the 10-second rule, there should be a serious study about the number and type of exposures to contact that lead to the most injuries and the most serious injuries.

His point was bolstered in the article by Dr. Julian Bailes, chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery and co-director of the NorthShore Neurological Institute in Evanston, Ill.

"We know if you play another 20 to 25 snaps a game, you're going to have more exposure to all injuries," Bailes said, "and you're going to have more potential for concussions, and you're going to have more blows to the head, whether they call them concussions or not."

Logic and common sense also would say that if you play 12 regular-season games, a conference championship game and two playoff games, you have more exposures than if you play 11 regular-season games and a bowl game. No doubt the lobbying effort to reduce the number of games - in the interest of player safety - will begin any day now.

As Saban said about the number of plays per game as it relates to injuries, "We should at least do a study to find out."

Hear, hear, but why stop there? Let's do a real study, a major study. Here are some questions they could investigate:

Do more players get hurt in the fourth quarter than the first quarter? If so, perhaps they should shorten quarters from 15 to 12 minutes.

Do more players get hurt in November than September? If so, perhaps they should reduce the number of games.

Do more players get hurt and require surgery at programs that play old-school power football or at programs that run the hurry-up no-huddle? The answer could lead to rules outlawing a certain style of play.

Do more players get hurt when Football Bowl Subdivision programs with 85 scholarships play Football Championship Subdivision programs with 63 scholarships? If so, those matchups could be forbidden.

It's good to see coaches such as Saban get behind the player safety movement so let's not cloud the issue. Let's stop saying things like "our game's getting to where it's not about blocking and tackling; it's about how fast we can go so they can't get lined up," as Saban did in the ESPN.com article, and keep the focus on player safety.

Common sense and logic say that, when you keep throwing in subjects such as competitive balance and officials' readiness and how the game should be played from a style standpoint, you lose that focus on the most important issue of all.